divine majesty

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Friday, 26 September 2014 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cosmas and St. Damian, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we hear yet again the proclamation of faith by St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles and disciples of Christ, who declared the very truth about Jesus, who is the Lord of all, the Saviour of all and the One through whom all mankind and all creations would have hope. This identity of Christ was not known at the time of Jesus, as the people thought that He was merely just one of the many prophets who had come and go across the centuries and ages.

Yes, Jesus was indeed a prophet, a great Prophet indeed, as One who fulfilled all the prophecies made by the prophets of old on the coming of the Anointed One of God, and He Himself declared the very words of the Lord, just like the prophets. The core difference is however, that unlike the prophets, like Elijah and even St. John the Baptist, who were the messengers of God’s words and will, Jesus is Himself the Word of God.

He is indeed the One through whom God had created the world and all the universe. Yet, He was willing to abandon all of His greatness and divinity so that He might come into the world and assume the form of a Man, a humble and simple person, but through which lie the key to the salvation of all the world and all mankind. Jesus came to fulfill the long promised salvation, which God had promised through the prophets and the elders of the people of God, and indeed, through a woman, His mother Mary, that He would be born from.

Nonetheless, it did not mean that the Christ and the Saviour would have an easy time, or that He would be immediately accepted by the people whom He had loved so much to merit His coming into the world to save them. Instead, the people rejected Him and refused to listen to Him, just as they and their ancestors had rejected and persecuted the prophets of God before.

This is because of mankind’s inability to comprehend the actions of the Lord and what He had tried for a long time to reveal to them. They did not realise that God is truly the One who is behind all things, every movement and every observations they can see in the world around them. God made His will known to men, but in their limited minds and intellect, many failed to look beyond the veils of deception and blindness that Satan and sin had placed on their path.

Men often presumed that they are so capable, and even more so these days as we discover more and more tools, gadgets and other ideas that often make us to be proud and arrogant, to the point that some of us even challenged God and His authority, claiming that we are free from the Lord and His control, and that we are capable of taking care of ourselves, but all these are indeed false delusion, on our part to satisfy our own heart’s desire for fame, glory and power.

Yet, this is a path that will certainly lead to our own destruction and undoing. It is because of all these that we reject God’s offer of love and mercy, and His kindness, which He had extended to us through Jesus. Jesus was rejected by the Pharisees and the elders of Israel, who viewed Jesus as a threat to their authority. Thus, despite them being the ones who knew most about the prophecies of the prophets, and thus rightly should have been the ones who first acknowledged Jesus as Lord and God, were the ones who became His greatest obstacles and enemies.

Greed and desire, hatred and jealousy, power and its misuse, as well as many other negative emotions and characteristics that often infect us mankind are what causes us to pursue action that will bring about our downfall and damnation if we are not careful and allow ourselves to be controlled by them, just as the Pharisees and the elders had been.

Instead, we should follow the examples of the two saints and martyrs whose feast day we are celebrating on this day, that is of St. Cosmas and St. Damian, martyrs of the faith during the time of the Roman Empire, at the height of persecutions against the faithful and the Church. They were said to be twin brothers, and both were famous physicians who lived justly and righteously, according to the ways of the Lord.

The two saints helped many of the people in need, those who were sick, and often also those who were poor and suffering. They were caught and arrested for adhering to their faith, and they were tortured under the pain of death and a very painful death indeed, if they would not want to recant their faith and embrace the worship of the pagan idols.

Temptations and offerings of the world certainly affected them just as they affected mankind. But they remained firmly devoted to God and kept their faith, because first of all they knew that God is the Master of all things, and then, that whatever sufferings they endured in the world, in the Name of the Lord, and in the defense of their faith, will be rewarded in heaven, as we are certain that they were indeed glorified by God, as examples of what we should be as well.

Ultimately, all of us have to realise that what can destroy and harm the body is nothing compared to what can harm and destroy the soul. We are often too concerned on the former and thus neglect the efforts we should rather put in to ensure the salvation of our souls. Let us all not forget that it is within our ability to choose between following and obeying God, just as St. Cosmas and St. Damian had done, rather than listening to our own desires. Or we can choose to follow the latter for temporary joy and satisfaction but which will lead to eternal suffering.

May Almighty God help us all, that we may find our way to Him, and through the intercessions of St. Cosmas and St. Damian, may all of us be inspired by their examples in life, their faith and love for others, as well as their undying and unshakeable devotion and love for God. Amen.

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Monday, 22 September 2014 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the lesson for us today from the Holy Scriptures we have heard is exceedingly clear, that we have to do something and take action, if we are able to do that something, for the benefit of those who are around us, and not just for our own benefits. We cannot be idle or ignorant especially if we have the power to make a difference. We certainly have this power, as God had granted it to us. If we are idle, then the Lord who knows it all, will not be pleased at our actions, or lack of actions.

We cannot have a faith that is stagnant and consists of mere word of mouth and lip-service. And we cannot have that kind of faith in which we are merely concerned about our own salvation. This kind of selfishness and this kind of faith will not be acceptable to the Lord. He had clearly indicated to us the kind of faith and love that we need to have, which is to love one another as we have loved ourselves, and to also love God in the same way, with all of our strengths and our dedications.

Our faith must therefore be based on this love, which we ought to have for God and for our fellow men. If not, then our faith is no different from being dead. It is precisely as what Jesus had said to His disciples, that this kind of faith is like those who has lighted a lamp but hide it under the bed or cover it with a bowl, in which the light of the lamp becomes useless and meaningless.

Those who committed evil and bad things in the sight of God, and also those who fail to do things which we ought to do, in our ignorance and laziness, as according to the words of the Book of Proverbs, will receive the wrath and displeasure of the Lord, as these have not done what He had asked us to do, and in our failure, we may have led many people who should have been saved, into darkness and condemnation together with us.

But God did promise also, that those who do His will faithfully and committed themselves to His cause will receive rich rewards and bountiful blessings for their work and dedication. God will not abandon those who had been faithful to Him, and who had undertaken the endeavours to bring more and more to the embrace of God and out of condemnation and the path to hell.

God knows everything, whatever we do, and whatever we have done in our lives, and whatever we have failed to do. We cannot hide anything from God who is omniscient and omnipresent, and who knows all things even in the depths of our hearts. Every moment we fail to do something for the benefit of our brethren, or instead if we bring them into sin, then it is a missed opportunity for us to do as what God had told us to do, and therefore is a missed opportunity for us to add another security to our salvation.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, what we are expected today from now on, is so that all of us can be heralds of the Lord’s Good News, spreading the truth and the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we had ourselves received, to the world and to the people, especially those who are still lost from the Lord, so that through our deeds and actions, we may be justified in our faith and therefore gain salvation promised to us by the Lord our God.

And at the same time, we may also help one another in our effort to seek the Lord and to attain salvation, such that in the end, we hope that no one shall be lost to the darkness and to evil. Indeed, the reality is that there are those who have been lost and there are also those who will be lost, because they continue to rebel against the Lord and refuse to listen to the words and to obey the works of the saints regardless of what had been done to them.

Let us all therefore work together as one people, one family in the Lord, helping one another, especially those who are in great need for the saving grace of our good works, that in the end, as many souls as possible can be saved and gain justification together with us. No one should be lost to the darkness, and more importantly, if we are capable of doing something to prevent the loss of these good souls, and we do nothing, then we are indeed responsible for their downfall and damnation.

May Almighty God be with us all, and may He give us strength and courage to do something for the sake and benefit of our brethren in need, that whenever it is within our power to do so, we should never be idle, but take a conscious action for their sake. God bless us all. Amen.

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(Usus Antiquior) Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist (Double II Classis) – Sunday, 21 September 2014 : Introit and Collect

Introit

Psalm 85 : 1, 2, 3, 4

Inclina, Domine, aurem Tuam ad me, et exaudi me : salvum fac servum Tuum, Deus meus, sperantem in Te : miserere mihi, Domine, quoniam ad Te clamavi tota die.

Laetifica animam servi Tui : quia ad Te, Domine, animam meam levavi.

Response : Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper : et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

English translation

Bow down Your ear, o Lord, to me, and hear me. Save Your servant, o my God, who trusted in You. Have mercy on me, o Lord, for I have cried to You all day.

Give joy to the soul of Your servant, for to You, o Lord, I have lifted up my soul.

Response : Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Collect

Ecclesiam Tuam, Domine, miseratio continuata mundet et muniat : et quia sine Te non potest salva consistere; Tuo semper munere gubernetur. Per Dominum…

English translation

Let Your continual pity, o Lord, cleanse and fortify Your Church, and because without You it cannot be safely established, let it ever be governed by Your grace. Through our Lord…

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Sunday, 21 September 2014 : 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle, Catechetical Sunday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 144 : 2-3, 8-9, 17-18

I will praise You day after day and exalt Your Name forever. Great is the Lord, most worthy of praise; and His deeds are beyond measure.

Compassionate and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord is good to everyone; His mercy embraces all His creation.

Righteous is the Lord in all His ways, His mercy shows in all His deeds. He is near those who call on Him, who call trustfully upon His Name.

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Saturday, 20 September 2014 : 24th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Laurent Imbert, Bishop and Martyr; St. Jacques Chastan, Priest and Martyr; St. Andrew Kim Taegon and Companions, Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

1 Corinthians 15 : 35-37, 42-49

Some of you will ask : How will the dead be raised? With what kind of body will they come? You fools! What you sow cannot sprout unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body of the future plant but a bare grain of wheat or any other seed.

It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in decomposition; it will be raised never more to die. It is sown in humiliation, and it will be raised for Glory. It is buried in weakness, but the resurrection shall be with power. When buried it is a natural body, but it will be raised as a spiritual body.

For there shall be a spiritual body as there is at present a living body. Scripture says that Adam, the first man, became a living being; but the last Adam has become a life-giving Spirit.

The Spirit does not appear first, but natural life, and afterwards comes the Spirit. The first man comes from the earth and is earthly, while the second One comes from heaven. As it was with the earthly one, so is it with the earthly people. As it is with Christ, so with the heavenly. This is why, after bearing the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly One.

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Monday, 8 September 2014 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Micah 5 : 1-4a

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, so small that you are hardly named among the clans of Judah, from you shall I raise the One who is to rule over Israel. For He comes forth from of old, from the ancient times.

YHVH, therefore, will abandon Israel until such time as she who is to give birth has given birth. Then the rest of His deported brothers will return to the people of Israel.

He will stand and shepherd His flock with the strength of YHVH, in the glorious Name of YHVH, His God. They will live safely while He wins renown to the ends of the earth. He shall be peace.

Alternative reading

Romans 8 : 28-30

We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love Him, whom He has called according to His plan. Those whom He knew beforehand, He has also predestined to be like His Son, similar to Him, so that He may be the Firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

And so, those whom God predestined He called, and those whom He called He makes righteous, and to those whom He makes righteous He will give His Glory.

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Sunday, 7 September 2014 : 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we come together to be with the Lord on this holy day of His, we are called together as the members of the Church of God to be responsible, loving and caring for one another, so that each one of us may help one another in our effort to seek our Lord and God, and so that all of us may be saved and be freed from the tyranny of sin.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Scripture readings of this day called us to ponder and reflect on the attitude we adopt in this life, and in how we live our faith in this life. Mankind are by nature a social creature, and we often need others around us as we live and as we face the daily challenges and opportunities presented before us, and how we behave would certainly be greatly affected by who we interacted with and what we did together with others around us.

That is why today in the readings, the main theme that we heard is in fact on the nature of the Church, and on how the Church should work together to ensure the salvation of all of its members, that means all of us gathered here this day, and also many others who have fallen along the way. The Church here does not refer to just the buildings and the institution of the Church as we know it. The Church of God as a whole, is the assembly and the gathering of all the faithful ones in Christ, united to His Body, as a member of the same Body by which we are made one, and made righteous in the Blood of the Lamb of God.

That is why in the Church, the whole Church refers to the entire body of the faithful, all over the world, from the greatest to the least, from the Pope to the common layman, from the ordained ministers and the religious brothers and sisters to all common faithful ones like us, and from the youngest ones to the oldest, and both the newly baptised and those who had been long counted among the faithful.

Following the tradition and teachings established by Jesus as we read in the Gospel today, the Church indeed rightly should be concerned on the fate of the faithful and the salvation of their souls. Why is this so? This is because mankind are by nature disobedient, restless and easily manipulated, and we are also easily tempted by our own personal ego, pride and other emotions, which in many cases likely resulted in us drifting away further and further from God and into damnation.

That was why over the course of the past two millenia, since the establishment of the Church and the faith, countless peoples have tried to subvert the faith and to corrupt it to suit their own purposes. And worse still, they did so not just for themselves, but they also spread their false ideas and teachings to many others around them and thus condemning and risking not just themselves, but also many others who are around them and even those entrusted to their care.

Among these could be counted the ranks of princes, kings, lords, even priests, bishops and the top hierarchy of the Church at times, and also among the laity, the educated, the rich and the poor. What they have thought about, spoke about and taught about were incompatible to the faith and what Jesus had taught to His disciples. In time, the Church came up with varieties of words to describe their actions, that is anathema, heresy and many others.

Those who studied the history of the Church and the faith must have been surprised by the staggering number of times the punishment and measure known best as excommunication, had been used. And in fact, excommunication remains to be used this day to correct the behaviour and awaken the spirit of repentance of those whose ideas and teachings are in direct or indirect contradiction to the faith and to the teachings of the Church.

Many detractors of this measure had argued and even became violently opposed to the actions of the Church both in the past and in the present, so that they criticised the use of excommunications as a tool to remove opposition to the Church and to gain more influence for itself. And some even alleged that the Church used them to silence the voice of those who wanted for reform or change in the Church.

Yes, it is true indeed that sometimes, excommunication had been used inappropriately, but in most cases, they have been intended not to punish, but to awaken the spirit of repentance and genuine desire to seek forgiveness from the Lord, which is that desire to admit their errors and return to the full embrace of the loving God through His Church.

We have to first understand the history of how excommunication come about, using what we know from the Scriptures and from what we heard today in the readings, especially from what Jesus mentioned in the Gospel today. In the past, during the time of the people of Israel, after the Exodus, God gave them His laws, commandments and precepts through Moses.

In that Law, some dealt with how certain people should be treated. Those who were found to have the disease of leprosy were obliged to leave their houses and the community of the faithful, and they have to wander outside the community, in the barrens and the desert until they are healed or cured. And when this was so, they had to show themselves to the priests who would certify them to return once more to the society.

Indeed, it was inevitable that those who contracted leprosy at that time to be ostracised and intimidated against by the rest of the society. They were considered to be uncleaned and as leprosy can spread from one person to another, this helped the exclusion and the bad treatment of the leprosy patients, even after they had been cured from their afflictions. But God did not intend for this to happen.

And in a similar spirit, the Lord Jesus told us through His disciples precisely how to deal with those among us in the Church who had contracted the same ‘leprosy’. This leprosy no longer refers to the physical disease that affects the body, but in fact refers to the leprosy of the soul, that is the degeneration of the state of our faith and soul to the point that we become defiant and unwilling to listen and to obey the teachings of the Church and the fundamentals of our faith.

We have many peoples such as these, and what I am going to mention to you are not the only ones there are out there. The Gnostics of the second century after the birth of Christ mixed the teachings of the faith with the contemporary pagan religions, idols and philosophical pursuits that ended up as a syncretic movement and faith totally incompatible with our true faith.

Then came the Arians, the Donatists, the Monophysites and others who taught doctrines incompatible against the faith, and who tried to subvert the faithful to their cause, telling them lies and inaccurate statements about the faith, on the nature of Jesus our Lord Himself, so that the people who were confused were easy to lure into their corrupting hold. As such, many were led away from salvation in God and into damnation, despite the best efforts by those in the Church to resist and fight back against their corrupting influences.

Then we have many others like the the Albigensians or the Cathars, the Hussians, the Bogomils, Paulicians, Iconoclasts who taught numerous lies and confused theology to the faithful, ending up in corrupting the people in the same way, pulling them away from salvation in the Church into damnation and eternal suffering in hellfire. Those people were misguided by many who thought that their human wisdom were better than the teachings of the Lord preserved in the traditions of the Church and the faith.

Then lastly came the great heresy of the Protestant ‘reformation’, where many of the faithful came to take it on themselves to rebel against the authority of the Church and by willingly splitting themselves from the Church, a rebellion which continues even to this day. Yes, we have so many Protestant denominations, to the point that it may not be wrong to say that there are as many denominations, or splinter groups as there are heads.

People like King Henry VIII, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zwingli and many other prominent persona of the Protestant ‘reformations’ like many others before them, Arian, Jan Hus, and others were truly the one mentioned by Jesus as the brethren who refused to listen to reason and chose to break away from the Church. They walked their own path, in open rebellion against God and the Church, leading and guiding many people into their rebellion and thus condemned countless souls to damnation.

The effects of their actions can still be felt today. Many remained separate from the Church and thus from the grace of God, and the lies perpetuated by those leaders mentioned earlier and their successors continued to poison their thoughts and that is why many remained with great contempt to the Church and all it represented.

The Church excommunicated them as well as many of the earlier members of the Church, who even included high ranking nobles and clergymen, and even kings, as they have erred in their path. However, as I have mentioned earlier, the purpose of this move was not to punish those afflicted, but rather to make them realise of the gravity of their errors, so that they may come to understand how their actions had caused grief wounds on the fabric of the Church and the faithful.

And thus, many of those who had been excommunicated had returned to the Church in penitence and seeking God’s forgiveness. A famous example would be that of the excommunication of Emperor Theodosius I of the Roman Empire, who was cut off from the communion of the Church by the famous St. Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, for the Emperor’s implicit and direct role in a massacre of the city of Thessalonica, where thousands of the faithful were ruthlessly murdered and the city ransacked.

The meaning of excommunication itself was to exclude the person afflicted from the Communion of the Church, and if this word sounds familiar, that is indeed what we receive in the Holy Communion, which is none other than the Most Precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Real Presence of the Most Holy Eucharist. All of us in the Church belongs to the Church, that is the Body of Christ precisely because all of us received the same Eucharist and thus are united to each other through our unity with the Lord.

And when a person is excommunicated, like that of the Emperor Theodosius and many others, they were severed from this unity and communion, and thus they were not able to receive the Eucharist, as they were also in a state of sin, and they were not able to exercise anything pertinent to the faith. Thus, that was why Jesus mentioned that those ought to be treated like a pagan or a publican, that means outside the Church, just like the lepers of old.

However, once again, the focus here is on mercy, and on the desire to see these people attaining forgiveness and justification, becoming once again a member of the Church and thus capable of attaining salvation once again. And to wrap up the story on the Emperor Theodosius, the Emperor went on to make a public display of humility and penance, wearing sackcloth to the Church and was once again welcomed into the Church by Bishop St. Ambrose.

That is, brothers and sisters in Christ, the purpose and intention of excommunication. Not as a punishment, but as a means through which the wayward ones and the staunchly rebellious among us may find our way back to God through the Church, through sincere repentance and penitence. Sadly, of course, many of those names and groups mentioned earlier never repented their sins and continued in their rebellions, some of which continued even today.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on these readings of today, let us recall the words of God to the prophet Ezekiel, how the faithful are tasked with the guardianship of the faith of one another, which means that we should be ready to intervene whenever we see around us there are those who begin to veer away from the path of the Lord.

It is only then if the person persisted in their rebelliousness, then we should refer it to the Church as a whole, and if he or she continued to persist to disobey the Lord, only then they should be cast out of the assembly of the faithful, in what we know as the excommunication, hoping that the person may in that time that remains for him or her, found his or her way back to the Lord and repent.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore work together to maintain the unity and the faith in the Church. May Almighty God guide us in our endeavours and help us to keep this faith alive and well. Let us all renew our commitment to the Lord and awaken in one another the love we truly should have for God, casting away all impurities and unworthiness. Let us all not reject and condemn those who have sinned and erred, and those who had been excommunicated, for indeed, many saints too were once sinners and excommunicants, who returned to the Lord and be reconciled with the Church. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 7 September 2014 : 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 94 : 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our God, and we His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would that today you heard His voice!

Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah, when your ancestors challenged Me, and they put Me to the test.

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Saturday, 6 September 2014 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)

1 Corinthians 4 : 6b-15

Learn by this example not to believe yourselves superior by siding with one against the other. How then are you more than the others? What have you that you have not received? And if you received it, why are you proud, as if you did not receive it?

So, then, you are already rich and satisfied, and feel like kings without us! I wish you really were kings, so that we might enjoy the kingship with you! It seems to me that God has placed us, the Apostles, in the last place, as if condemned to death, and as spectacles for the whole world, for the angels as well as for mortals.

We are fools for Christ, while you show forth the wisdom of Christ. We are weak, you are strong. You are honoured, while we are despised. Until now we hunger and thirst, we are poorly clothed and badly treated, while moving from place to place.

We labour, working with our hands. People insult us and we bless them, they persecute us and we endure everything; they speak evil against us, and ours are works of peace. We have become like the scum of the earth, like the garbage of humankind until now.

I do not write this to shame you, but to warn you as very dear children. Because even though you may have ten thousand guardians in the Christian life, you have only one Father; and it was I who gave you life in Christ through the Gospel.

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Wednesday, 3 September 2014 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we come together to celebrate the feast day of a great saint of the Church, that is Pope St. Gregory the Great, one of the great popes of the early Church, who was one of the few Popes who was given and truly deserved the title ‘the Great’, all because of his works and dedications to the Church of God, as the great reformer who brought great changes to the practices of the Church in ways that benefitted countless souls and helped them on their path to redemption.

Pope St. Gregory the Great was born in Italy at a time of difficulty when the civilised world was under great trouble after the fall of the Roman Empire in the Western regions of Europe including Italy. The Roman Empire in the East managed to reclaim Italy, but it led to a long series of conflicts and warfare that characterised the early life and indeed much of the life of Pope St. Gregory the Great.

Pope St. Gregory was renowned to be a very great and prolific writer, whose numerous works and writings had inspired countless faithful, brought countless souls back from the brink of damnation, and had also been of a very great impact to the development of the faith in the Church, as well as in terms of the liturgy of worship in the Church. He took part in rejuvenating and reforming many parts of the worship, to make them proper and truly worthy of the Lord in various aspects, including rites and music.

What we know now as the Gregorian Chant can in fact be attributed partly to its namesake, that is none other than Pope St. Gregory himself, he who reformed the ways that Church music was used, and how eventually this beautiful liturgy of worship then developed throughout the many centuries between him and us, and become essentially what we know as the Mass of the Ages, or the Mass of the Tridentine Roman Rite, a Mass and celebration of the liturgy in perfect beauty and worship worthy of the Lord.

Pope St. Gregory the Great also wrote extensively on various topics, on the various aspects of the faith, and he also took part in the defense against heresies and schisms before he was elected the Pope of the Church. He did many good works, the results of which is that the rejuvenation and empowerment of the Church and its teachings on the faith, which brought light and hope to mankind living in darkness and despair after the fall of the Roman civilisation.

He was thus known, along with St. Augustine as one of the greatest Doctors of the Church, especially in the western regions of Christendom, and the legacies of his work can still be easily and clearly felt, both in his successor, the Pope we have today, and the heart of the Church in Rome, where Pope St. Gregory was once the Bishop of, and finally throughout the entire Universal Church itself, particularly in his writings and in his reforms on the celebration of the sacred liturgy.

All of these are to remind us, in accordance with what we heard in the Scripture readings today. Jesus cast out demons in His mission, and those demons tremblingly obeyed the commands of He who is God, and He who is the Word of. God made flesh in Jesus, and He who holds all the authority over all heaven and earth. And God is the One who made all things possible, including all possibilities for us, and the growth of our faith.

We mankind are easily lured away from the path of truth, that is away from the path of the Lord, the path towards salvation. Sin is the tool that Satan used in his continuous and tireless efforts to lure mankind away from salvation and into eternal damnation with him. That is why, the Lord who loves us wants to save us, by sending unto us Jesus, His own Son, to redeem us from the power and dominion of these evil spirits.

Jesus meant business when He came into the world, to heal the afflicted and the oppressed sons and daughters of men from the tyranny and dominion of Satan and his allies. He brought fear to the forces of darkness, which had been for long unchallenged and supreme in their control and grip over mankind. His words is power, and He brought healing and salvation to all those who had been long gripped and enslaved in darkness, bringing them back into the light.

God is truly indeed the One who made all things possible. It is through Him that all things are made possible and real, and through the help of the actions of the disciples and Apostles of our Lord, their successors, the bishops and the priests we have today, we receive this same truth which had been revealed through Jesus and what He had done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, then what had Pope St. Gregory the Great done in order to relate to these Scripture readings which we heard today? Pope St. Gregory the Great had reformed, established and standardised the ways of worship in the Church, creating a golden standard upon which the later generations would look back upon for reference and guide. Pope St. Gregory not only contributed in terms of his voluminuous writings and letters that helped the faithful to grow stronger in their faith, but also through his works in bringing the heaven itself, the glory of God to earth.

For indeed, the Holy Mass itself can be likened to the heavens brought down to earth, the glories of heaven and the majesty of God brought into our humble abode, no matter how gloriously decorated it is, to house the very Real Presence of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Eucharist, which is truly the heart and the centrepiece of the Mass. The Mass is the Sacrifice of our Lord, in which we celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, when He single-handedly took all of our sins at once, and became the lamb of sacrifice to make us whole again.

Therefore, in essence, the celebration of the Holy Mass itself is a celebration of this very important and crucial moment in our history, and indeed, in the history of all creations. We are celebrating something divine and not something of the world. And thus, a proper and fitting celebration and way of worship is necessary, as a way for us humble men to glorify and praise our Lord who gave Himself for us, to rebuke Satan forever and get us out of the dominion of evil into the light.

Thus, Pope St. Gregory the Great acted similarly to what St. Paul, Apollos and the many other disciples of our Lord, by sowing the seeds of the Lord on fertile soil and helping these seeds to grow by nurturing them and providing for them. Those seeds of faith, hope and love have been planted by the Lord in our hearts, and it is up to us all to allow them to grow and bear fruit. And Pope St. Gregory the Great, together with numerous other saints and holy people of God made this possible.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all reflect on our lives and on our actions, on whether we have lived our lives according to the will of God, and to the way which our Lord Jesus had shown us. Indeed, there will be challenges along the way, as Satan and his allies certainly would not waste their time to attack and assault us in any way possible. But if we remain vigilant and strong, we will be able to resist them and remain true to the Lord?

And how can we do this? None other than through prayer, charity and total devotion to the Lord through our complete and total participation in the celebration of the Holy Mass. Prayer helps us to establish a crucial link with our Lord and God so that we may know His will for us, that we may live more closely according to His ways. And charity helps us to live our faith that we may have a real, concrete and living faith based on our actions and deeds, and not just by empty belief alone.

And lastly, as Pope St. Gregory the Great had initiated and done, we have to have a very great respect and good attitude towards the celebration of the Holy Mass, in which we have to see it as the celebration of the sacrifice of heaven, the very ultimate sacrificial act of our Lord Jesus, who gave His own Body and Blood for us, that all of us who take part in Him may be saved and gain eternal life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore from now on, let us participate fully in the Mass, not by distracting others and ourselves from the Lord, as participation does not equal loud music, loud prayers or excessive gestures. Instead, let us understand the importance of the liturgy of worship and follow what our ancestors and our fathers in faith used to do. In that, our faith will grow, and from there too, the seeds of our love will germinate, grow and produce rich fruits.

May Almighty God bless us all, protect us and guide us on our way in this life, so that we may remain ever faithful, and that we may bear real and living fruits of our faith and love, both for our fellow men and for our Lord. May all of us be gathered together and be empowered with strength to overcome the challenges and the temptations of the world made by Satan to hinder us. May God be with us all, forever and ever. Amen.